How the Brain Stops Time (New Research)

Here's another write up on the same experiment from 2007. Why time seems to slow down in Emergencies.

When a person is scared, a brain area called the amygdala becomes more active, laying down an extra set of memories that go along with those normally taken care of by other parts of the brain.

Eagleman added this illusion "is related to the phenomenon that time seems to speed up as you grow older. When you're a child, you lay down rich memories for all your experiences; when you're older, you've seen it all before and lay down fewer memories. Therefore, when a child looks back at the end of a summer, it seems to have lasted forever; adults think it zoomed by."

Yeah, I too remember the summers that lasted forever when I was a kid.

Now I get into the zone while doing many things, especially high intensity sports like snow skiing. When I'm in the zone I can almost feel each snow crystal that my skis pass over even though I'm standing on skis with thick plastic boots.

There are natural substances that help you get into the zone, but I'll leave that for another discussion.

reply to post by verylowfrequency


I was with you until you referred to skiing as a "high intensity sport", I've skied on black diamonds and snowboarded a trillion times, it's not intense at all, it's incredibly easy. Football is intense, boxing is intense, skiing and snowboarding is a fun way to release stress and get some exercise. Trust me, I spent 14 years of my life in a top ski resort, it's not intense.

This is a distinction without a difference in the context of this phenomena.

The idea that they are exploring is if people just think that it slowed down when they access their memories. I am pointing out that it isn't just in retrospect, but the slowing down effect happens at the time of the incident.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
reply to post by Aeons

 

Except nothing happens in real-time. Before you actually perceive something photons have to hit your retina, it has to be converted into electrical energy, then that electrical energy must be conducted from the eyes, to the brainstem, up into the cortex and into the visual cortex in the occipital lobe. At this point the information being received must be divided based on spatial attention and the shape of the stimuli, at which point it conducts to the visual association cortex. So, we can only perceive our environment as fast as electricity can be conducted through our brain.

reply to post by manbird12000


But time is a tangible dimension. If you want to locate an object, for example the earth in space, you need to know its three dimensional coordinates relative to some frame of reference - say the sun for example - but whatever coordinates you come up with will only be correct at a certain time. You need to know when it will occupy that position in space. The fact that you have to have an object's position in time as well as its position in space in order to locate it(when it will be there) proves that time is just as real as space. Our perception of it is variable - at least certain events seem to take longer than others even though the clock says that they all took the same amount of time - but nothing particularily special is going on here. It seems to me that this perceptual difference is similar to the one we experience with temperature; after several weeks of really cold weather, a moderate day feels warm, but after several weeks of really hot weather a moderate day feels cool. Much of our sense perception is relative and dynamic.

Time s a nominalization. The precise meaning is always individual - what experience passes what.
In NLP hypnotic research we found that smaller distortions take place dependent upon the contents of your consciousness. When you are in a trance, and sounds are farther off than normal, and you let inner pictures and warm feeling come closer and become bigger and flashier, "time" - relative to the person speaking words to let you into trance - seems to slow down. Internal dialogue is not too muc present.

If you want to speed up your experience of subjective time, in contrast, try talking to yourself about some linear subject - like balancing your checkbook or your bills, or write a letter in your head to someone you are ready to talk to.

As far as chemicals or brain processes - it is an epistemological question. Every change of consciousness creates a lot of chemicals in the brain and other places. As drug users know, it works the other way around too, but imperfectly.

I have also had time dialtion experiences, like one when I was mugged and three guys were kicking my head. I had a long conversation with spirits (I did not believe in that consciously at the time) and then ten minutes later I returned and shouted to them to take my stuff and let me stay alive.